Major Updates

Negotiated Rulemaking Session on Program Integrity and Institutional Quality Begins 

The U.S. Department of Education has started a Negotiated Rulemaking Session focused on Program Integrity and Institutional Quality. The first session took place January 8–11. The second session will occur from February 5–8, and the final session is scheduled for March 4–7. These sessions will delve into pivotal areas of higher education regulation on the following topics State Authorization, Distance Education, Return to Title IV, Cash Management, and Accreditation, among others which can be found under the “Materials” section on the Department’s Negotiated Rulemaking site. A TRIO Subcommittee meeting also occurred January 12 and is slated for February 9. The Department has released their second round of issue papers on their Negotiated Rulemaking site (linked via the topics above). Some notable suggestions the Department has proposed to change in regulation which are relevant to the UPCEA community are: 

  • Accreditation changes including:
    • Requiring institutional accreditor approval if the institution adds any non-degree or degree-granting program at a level not previously offered by the institution
    • Requiring institutional accreditor approval if the program that the agency has previously approved to operate achieves or exceeds a 50 percent threshold for distance education offerings (means that at least 50 percent of the institution’s students are enrolled in at least one course offered through distance education; or offers at least 50 percent of its courses through distance education.)
    • Requiring accreditors to visit and approve all physical and branch campus locations of an institution.
  • State Authorization alterations including: 
    • Requiring reciprocity agreements to require institutions to have a system to report student complaints to the State in which the student resides, and to provide those complaints to the organizations that administer the agreement.
    • Requiring State authorization reciprocity agreements governing boards only include representation from State employees – including regulatory bodies, enforcement agencies, attorneys general, and licensing bodies – and members of the public.
    • Allowing that, outside of educational authorization, for reciprocity agreements to not prohibit states to apply general education laws to institutions.

  • Distance Education alterations including:
    • Removing the allowance for clock-hour programs provided via distance education to be offered through asynchronous learning.
    • Creating a virtual location for institutions that includes all students who are being instructed primarily through distance education.
    • Specifying in the definition of “a week of instructional time” that asynchronous coursework via distance education is limited to credit-hour programs.
    • Requiring schools to take attendance for fully distance education courses for purposes of Return to Title IV. During the first rulemaking session, the Department clarified that for fully distance education students, merely logging in is not a form of academic attendance, but would need to be paired with some sort of other activity. They also clarified that for those programs that are hybrid, they would not require all in-person courses related to this provision to be attendance-taking.

  • Other changes including: 
    • Eliminating the provision allowing institutions to include the cost of books and supplies as part of tuition and fees, unless there is a compelling health or safety reason to do so. This change could impact “inclusive access”. Current regulations permit schools to automatically charge students for books and supplies as part of tuition and fees, without student authorization, even when the materials can be obtained from a source other than the institution. The regulations permit these charges if the school has a contract with a third-party publisher or retailer, offers the books “below competitive market rates,” and gives students a way to opt out, so long as the student can obtain the books and supplies by the seventh day of the payment period. 

 

These proposals represent the Department’s suggested regulatory edits, which negotiators will scrutinize and potentially revise over the next two sessions. Each day of the full committee sessions will conclude with a 30-minute public comment period, with the exception of the final day. The subcommittee sessions, however, will not include a public comment segment. Interested parties wishing to provide public comments are advised to email [email protected] with their name and organizational affiliation, indicating their desire to participate in these crucial discussions. Registration is required to view the virtual sessions, and links to this registration, a list of the negotiators, and other resources are included below. 

 

UPCEA Policy Matters: Primers and Insights Launched with Intro to Online Regulatory Landscape and Overview of Negotiated Rulemaking

We are excited to introduce our latest resources, “Policy Matters: Primers and Insights,” designed to guide you through the complex policy frameworks crucial to higher education in the United States. In an era where online and professional continuing education programs are at the forefront of educational innovation, understanding the regulatory landscape is vital. “Policy Matters: Primers and Insights” offers a comprehensive introduction to foundational topics in federal legislation and regulations that have a significant impact on online and professional continuing education. This series is more than just a resource; it’s a roadmap to navigating the intricacies of policy that govern higher education. Whether you’re an administrator, educator, or policy maker, these insights will empower you to make informed decisions and contribute to the long-term success of your programs.

Our first two Primers and Insights are:

Stay ahead in the dynamic world of higher education. Embrace the opportunity to deepen your understanding of the policies shaping our programs and institutions. Learn more.

 

 

Upcoming Policy Webinars

 

  • February 21, 2024 | 2:00-3:00 PM ET
    Webinar | Navigating Regulatory Changes in Higher Education
    Hosted by the UPCEA Policy Committee + Online Administration Network
    Join us for a session focusing on the latest regulatory changes impacting online and professional continuing education taking effect July 1, 2024. This event will address key areas such as licensure notifications, financial responsibility standards, administrative capability, certification processes, and updated gainful employment guidelines. A quick update on current U.S. Department of Education negotiated rulemaking sessions focused on state authorization, distance education, and accreditation, as well as consideration of the regulatory landscape generally, will also be provided.

    The target audience for the webinar: academic leaders, administrators, and legal and compliance officers. The information offered will allow institutions to prepare for significant regulatory changes that will impact online education.
    Register.


Other News

A person (Derek Bruff) smiles at the camera.

By Derek Bruff

In December 2020, my staff at the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching sent a survey to about 500 faculty and other instructors who had completed the online course design institute we offered the previous summer. The OCDI, as we called it, was a two-week faculty development program aimed at helping our university’s instructors prepare to teach online that fall. In response to one survey question, 90% of the 252 instructors who responded to the survey, agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that students can learn effectively in online courses.

Sadly, we didn’t think to collect a benchmark for this statistic prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I suspect that the number would have been much lower a year before. Outside of our nursing school, which had a long-established distance education program, very few faculty on my campus had any experience teaching online until 2020. In fact, one department (that I shall not name) refused to take transfer credits for online versions of very commonly offered courses because the faculty there didn’t believe online courses had sufficient credibility.

Recently, UPCEA’s Jay Halfond posed a provocative question in the UPCEA forums: “Have we opened up the online floodgates beyond our capacity to support these courses?” Jay referenced the increasing enrollments in online courses and programs at colleges and universities, even among traditional residential undergraduates. That’s true at the University of Mississippi, where I work now, and I suspect that’s true at many other institutions, too.

Why the flood? As I mentioned in my very safe prediction for the UPCEA 2024 Predictions report that we’ll see more creative online offerings from colleges and universities in 2024, traditionally aged college students are increasingly looking for online and asynchronous options. This is likely in response, at least in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic, which opened students’ (and parents’) eyes to non-traditional modalities. Moreover, those faculty who now see online teaching and learning as viable are leading a growing interest among faculty in teaching online.

So let me rephrase Jay’s question a little: How should higher ed go about supporting all these new online offerings?

In the before times (that is, prior to the pandemic), it was often the case that a new online course or program received some level of support in the form of instructional design or digital media from campus units tasked with such work, and faculty teaching these courses often had to complete some kind of training in online instruction. In contrast, onsite course offerings did not receive such routine support, although instructors could, at many campuses, request advice on course design, student engagement strategies, and more from their local center for teaching and learning.

When we pivoted to emergency remote teaching in the spring of 2020 and later in the year to more intentionally designed online instruction, I was fortunate to be directing a teaching center that also administered and supported our campus’ learning management system. While we didn’t offer the instructional design or digital media services that a full office of online education might provide, we did regularly help faculty and other instructors learn to use the LMS effectively in support of their onsite courses.

The combination of traditional teaching center services and instructional technology support meant we had a lot of strengths in supporting our university’s move to online instruction that year. Faculty across campus were already used to calling us for advice on their teaching or for help using the LMS, and we had an existing course design institute we could quickly engineer into the OCDI I mentioned above. Having 500 instructors complete the OCDI made a big difference for the student experience that fall.

Today, it’s clear that some institutions have moved to a new support model where online assistance is opt-in, much like onsite course design help was prior to 2020. That makes some sense, because faculty have more experience and expertise in teaching online than they used to, thanks in part to faculty development offerings like our OCDI that were provided all over higher ed. However, having worked in faculty development for two decades, I’ve seen how beneficial it can be to both instructors and students when faculty take advantage of the kinds of support that teaching centers and online education offices can provide.

What if we went in a different direction? What if we blurred the lines a bit between online and onsite when it came to helping our faculty? After all, it is often the same instructors teaching across modalities, something that is likely even more true today than it was in 2019. And it is often the same students learning across modalities, as traditional residential students take more online courses. What if we provided instructors of all kinds with the professional learning they need to teach well, regardless of modality?

I have a chapter about my teaching center’s experiences during the pandemic in the new book Higher Education Beyond COVID: New Teaching Paradigms and Promise edited by Regan Gurung and Dwayne Plaza. I interviewed Regan and Dwayne on my podcast, and I keep thinking about something Regan said while reflecting on the diverse campus experiences represented in the book. “Campuses with well-established [teaching] centers that also had good communication with leadership and administration, they’re the ones that coped better.”

Whether a unit is a center for teaching, an online education office, or some combination of the two, if it can provide quality faculty development on teaching for its campus, it can help in a time of a crisis while also building a kind of resiliency that helps an institution weather all kinds of challenges to its teaching mission. Including, perhaps, a flood of new online learning offerings.

Alternative non-degree credentials are slowly becoming higher education’s hottest learning modality. Enrollment is strong and employer buy-in is promising. However, two reports from UPCEA demonstrate that despite institutions’ increased infrastructure to provide these academic programs, challenges persist—and they’re leaving money on the table as a result.

In a December 2023 report that studied nearly 100 UPCEA members representing institutions focused on online and continuing education, 94% said their institution offers alternative credentials, and 66% said senior leadership has become fundamental to their institutions’ strategic plans. These schools’ most common alternative credentials were non-credit certificates, professional certificates and digital badges.

Stackable credentials are becoming a hybrid choice that can be used toward credit and non-credit-bearing programs. Learners can “stack” their credentials toward specific, lengthier programs. The most common types of alternative credentials to be both credit and non-credit-bearing are professional certificates and badges. Large institutions, which have over 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students, were the most likely to provide stackable credentials.

Read the full article.

As the pool of traditional-age students shrinks, colleges are increasingly turning to nondegree credentials to expand the appeal of their academic offerings to working adults. At the same time, an increasing number of employers want their employees to be able to upskill and reskill through microcredential programs.

But four-year institutions are lagging behind third-party providers, such as LinkedIn Learning and Coursera, in their efforts to create employer partnerships, according to a new report released Tuesday by Collegis Education, an online program support company, and UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

In 2023, 40 percent of organizations surveyed had partnerships or relationships with four-year colleges and universities, which was a nine-percentage-point drop compared to the previous year’s inaugural survey. Partnerships between employers and LinkedIn Learning, however, rose from 44 percent in 2022 to 52 percent in 2023.

Read the full article.

Opportunities are growing, but higher ed institutions are losing ground to private providers

WASHINGTON, DC (January 23, 2024) — Companies partnering externally to provide training or professional development to employees increased by 26 percent (nearly 15 percentage points) between 2022 and 2023, according to a new study released today by Collegis Education and UPCEA, the online and professional education association. In addition, the report, “Unveiling the Employer’s View: An Employer-Centric Approach to Higher Education Partnerships,” revealed that more than 61 percent of companies without external training partnerships are interested in developing them.

In the second year of an ongoing research series, Collegis partnered with UPCEA to survey more than 500 employers to better understand their perceptions of collaborating with higher ed on professional development programs and alternative credentials.

While opportunities to partner with employers are growing, higher education is losing ground to private providers. Companies working with four-year colleges to provide employee training and professional development dropped by nearly 10 percent between 2022 and 2023, and community colleges also saw a decrease of 7 percent in training partnerships. Meanwhile, the number of companies turning to professional organizations and for-profit companies, such as LinkedIn Learning, for employee professional development is on the rise. Nearly 40 percent of company leaders cited “expense” as the main barrier to partnering with colleges and universities.

“In just the second year of our research partnership with Collegis, our study finds that an increasing number of companies are turning to external resources for microcredentials and other alternative credential programs,” said Jim Fong, Chief Research Officer, UPCEA. “Through strong collaborations with corporate partners to develop microcredential offerings, colleges and universities have an unprecedented opportunity to diversify their enrollment and open up new revenue streams.”

Those companies with higher education partnerships reported high levels of satisfaction. Nearly 100 percent of employers who currently work with a higher education partner plan to continue due to the school meeting the employer’s needs (77 percent), positive employee feedback (71 percent), and improved job performance (68 percent).

“This year’s study demonstrates that higher education institutions who develop custom programs to meet corporate training and professional development needs have forged successful partnerships and achieved enrollment at scale,” said Tracy A. Chapman, Ph.D., Chief Academic Officer at Collegis. “However, the decline in employer-institution partnerships shows that colleges and universities are not just competing against each other, but also private providers that have established themselves as formidable competitors. Partnership opportunities are on the rise. However, colleges and universities must act now to retain and grow their market share in the microcredential space.”

The complete 2024 study is available for download at: “Unveiling the Employer’s View: An Employer-Centric Approach to Higher Education Partnerships.”

 

About Collegis Education

 Collegis Education is higher ed’s innovation enabler, empowering schools with a better vision of how they fit into learners’ lives and what’s possible when they do. With more than 10 years’ experience as industry pioneers, we’ve proven how leveraging data, tech and talent can transform everything from student experiences to business processes. As higher ed evolves, you’ll need a thought partner and tactical pro, not a pre-packaged product or platform. Our strategic services allow institutions to leapfrog from wondering to doing, implement long-term growth plans and build in-house capacity to thrive in a complex market. Learn more at CollegisEducation.com.

 

About UPCEA

UPCEA is the online and professional education association. Our members continuously reinvent higher education, positively impacting millions of lives. We proudly lead and support them through cutting edge research, professional development, networking and mentorship, conferences and seminars, and stakeholder advocacy. Our collaborative, entrepreneurial community brings together decision makers and influencers in education, industry, research, and policy interested in improving educational access and outcomes. Learn more at upcea.edu.

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As the next generation enters secondary education and the workforce, traditional university experiences are no longer enough to prepare students for their professional lives. Even generations who have been in the workforce for years are making career transitions, meaning that they are trying to learn applicable skillsets and earn relevant credentials to bolster their portfolios.

One educational method that applies to all adult learners is earning industry-related credentials and certifications. Degrees seem to be listed as job requirements less and less, while certifications and other industry credentials continue to be valued by potential employers. According to a new white paper from ISACA and UPCEA, “Flexible, Stackable Certificates: The Future of Education,” new adult learners do not believe that traditional four-year programs are worth the high costs due to this lack of job skillset development. “A University of Chicago study found that 56% of Americans agree with the statement ‘A four-year college education is not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.’”

In order to reach the unique needs of these students and workers, academic institutions are beginning to adapt by partnering with professional associations and offering stackable credentials. These credentials provide learners with the practical skills that they are seeking and prepare them to enter the workforce or a new career with applicable skillsets. The white paper outlines why stackable credentials are so attractive to adult learners: they provide the opportunity to gain competencies in multiple areas, which can be built toward credit or non-credit programs. In fact, studies conducted through several states have shown that from 32 to 43% of certificate earners are re-enrolling in college and stacking credentials.

According to the white paper, “Companies and universities have increasingly entered partnerships that provide invaluable benefits to both the employers and institutions. In a 2023 study of employers, UPCEA found that of the respondents from companies that partner with four-year colleges or universities, 33% said that employee development was the main reason, 28% said recruitment, and 12% cited access to quality staff/resources/programs.”

How to Implement Credentials in Your Curriculum

If your institution is looking to implement flexible and career-advancing educational paths for your students, offering credentials and certifications is the perfect place to start. Doing so is a time- and cost-efficient method of encouraging accessibility, microproductivity, and lifelong learning and skill development. Students are able to sharpen and validate their knowledge in specific areas in a shorter timeframe than traditional four-year degrees, and they can stack these credentials to create a path toward a larger certification, degree or career opportunity.

Here are a few first steps your institution can take toward implementing credentials in your curriculum:

  • Partner with an established provider of quality certificates and certifications. Some industry professional associations offer resources, credentials, training and community to progress individuals’ careers and transform their organizations.
  • Build your program pathways intentionally. Learners are looking to gain knowledge and continue down a pathway that will build upon what they already understand. According to the ISACA-UPCEA white paper, “These shorter-term credential pathways allow individuals the opportunity to progress from one credential type to the next within the same institution, continuously building upon the skills or knowledge topic.”
  • Create value and professional relationships with external companies. Companies and universities are increasingly working together in ways that are beneficial to both the employers and institutions. Corporate sponsorships, content development and early-stage research and recruitment are mutually beneficial collaborations that provide opportunities for all parties involved and create successful long-term relationships.

For more information about stackable credentials, implementing them into existing curricula, and developing accessible and flexible pathways for adult learners, download the new UPCEA and ISACA white paper here.

 

ISACA is a global community advancing individuals and organizations in their pursuit of digital trust. For over 50 years, ISACA has equipped individuals and enterprises with the knowledge, credentials, education, training and community to progress their careers, transform their organizations, and build a more trusted and ethical digital world.
This global professional association and learning organization leverages the expertise of its more than 170,000 members who work in digital trust fields. It has a presence in 188 countries, including 225 chapters worldwide. Through its foundation One In Tech, ISACA supports IT education and career pathways for under-resourced and underrepresented populations.

Like many colleges and universities today, Spelman College was faced with the challenge of generating more revenue and also expanding beyond their core student population of women of color. Ultimately, the college made the decision to target working adults and professional learners who have been in the workforce for 10–15 years, a promising and relatively untapped market.

Exploring new direction

Adding co-ed adult learners to Spelman’s student population raised some concerns about extending the Spelman brand to new audiences without tarnishing it in any way. To address these concerns, the Spelman team undertook an exploration process to answer some key questions to align their outreach efforts with Spelman’s existing recruitment strategy and offering:

  • What is our target population?
  • What will we offer?
  • How do we take this to market?

Testing the waters

To inform their approach to adult learners, the college ventured into online learning with summer courses that their existing student base could use to get ahead or catch up academically. Interest in these courses from Spelman undergraduates was high, and, as a result, the Spelman board of trustees challenged the college’s team to explore how they could leverage this model to attract adult learners.

Spelman mapped out a plan for its certificate offerings and developed each course. As online delivery was a new option for Spelman, they decided to work with Collegis Education to support faculty with training, including helping with course updates and any challenges faculty might face while teaching a course online for the first time. 

The innovative online offering — eSpelman — offers certificate programs for anyone who needs an opportunity to increase their workforce skills and advance their careers.

Proving the concept

eSpelman launched three courses in January 2022 with 49 learners. In 2023, enrollments rose to 1,300 learners in eSpelman certificate courses ranging from Business Essentials to Cosmetic Science. Spelman continues to rely on Collegis to help research areas where the program should grow and to develop a strategic plan for that growth.

Next steps for Spelman will be to offer advanced certificates, particularly in the healthcare field, and to develop a C-suite certificate program. Looking ahead, Associate Vice President Tiffany Watson, Ph.D. says, “Maybe one day we’ll have a building on campus that houses the eSpelman lifelong learning enterprise. I’d love to one day launch an online degree program.”

Get our white paper “Expanding Vision to Reach Adult Learner Market” to learn the role that marketing strategy, a partnership with Guild and alumni support played in eSpelman’s success.

Download the white paper.

 

Collegis Education is higher ed’s innovation enabler, empowering schools with a better vision of how they fit into learners’ lives and what’s possible when they do. With more than 10 years’ experience as industry pioneers, we’ve proven how leveraging data and technology can transform everything from student experiences to business processes. As higher ed evolves, you’ll need a thought partner and tactical pro, not a pre-packaged product or platform. Our strategic services allow institutions  to leapfrog from wondering to doing, implement long-term growth plans and build in-house capacity to thrive in a complex market. Learn more at CollegisEducation.com.

Using Generative AI (GenAI) should become as much of a part of your daily routine as checking the weather or taking a coffee/tea break.

We have now reached the point that GenAI is refined enough to assist with a high percentage of our daily work and life chores. From creating the grocery list to creating a marketing plan, we can effectively utilize GenAI to save time and add new ideas. Incorporating generative AI into your daily routine can enhance efficiency and information access. It is a great way to improve your prompt-writing skills and to become a more sophisticated user of the technology. Integrating GenAI use into your daily routine can help you become a more effective user of the technology, saving time, delivering a higher-quality end product, and encouraging efficiency. As you begin, I recommend one brief introductory article on writing prompts by David Gerwirtz writing in ZDNet.

One of the most effective first steps is to use AI-powered search enhancements. You can avail yourself of browser extensions or plugins that integrate AI with your search engine to provide summaries, additional context, or answer specific questions based on search results. I have used this for most of the past year. Every time I do a Google Search, which is many times every day, a split screen appears with the normal Google Search results on the left and results from a selectable GenAI chatbot on the right. This significantly improves the results, giving me summaries and links to websites on the left and longer, more in-depth, responses with additional creative and critical information on the right.

Whenever possible, I use AI-enhanced reading in which I prompt AI tools to summarize articles, books, or papers, highlighting key points or generating questions to consider. This can be particularly useful for time-limited opportunities in which I am seeking more than a link to a website. Oftentimes this gives me new perspectives and suggests further readings that can give me more complete coverage of the topic.

One of my most time-consuming tasks is in effectively sorting, handling and responding to more than 100 daily emails among my three accounts. Often times, these involve scheduling meetings and setting deadlines. GenAI is particularly adept at this. You can use AI-driven tools to optimize your calendar, suggest meeting times, draft or sort emails, and manage tasks more efficiently. This can upgrade your personal organization, calendar effectiveness and the quality of your email responses. On occasion, I allow the app to actually write a routine email response and send the response.

Taking notes is one of my most disliked tasks. I always cower and “look busy” when the chair asks who will take notes for a meeting. But, if you are on the hook for the day’s note-taking, GenAI can be most helpful. Use AI-powered note-taking apps that not only take dictated notes but also suggest improvements, generate summaries, or brainstorm ideas. The value-added aspects can really enhance your notes for the group. Of course, you may not want to do that, since it may make you a more popular choice for the task!

On the personal side, don’t forget AI as a coach, tutor or mentor. If some aspect of your golf, swimming or rugby game needs improvement, GenAI can skim the literature in a flash and provide you with ideas to improve. You can integrate AI tutoring or learning platforms to personalize your learning path, whether for professional development or personal interests. This will also work for mentoring students with ideas to improve professional communication, strategies for scaling the ladder of promotions, rehearsing for job interviews, and preparing annual personnel reviews. What is most surprising to me is that with high-quality prompt writing, you can elicit actionable ideas in just a few seconds. This can even take place in a live Zoom meeting by opening a second window for the GenAI app and voice the response in your Zoom session or add it to the chat message list.

For creative or analytical work, consider leveraging AI to provide initial drafts, data analysis, or visual content generation, which you can then refine. For this opinion piece, I invited ChatGPT to provide me with ideas and examples. Let me be clear that while I incorporated input from the AI app, this article is written by me, Ray Schroeder, on my laptop, in my recliner, in the den, with our dog Humphrey at my feet. ChatGPT came up with a few of the examples I used and helped me with a part of the conclusion.

GenAI visuals and integration into office tools can be most useful. For example, you might prompt the tool to gather data from a report and format it for excel or Google Sheets. In an instant, you can insert it into a report. Or, you may want to ask GenAI to create an infographic for a report or marketing a program. In just an instant, the task is ready for editing (which is often needed). Even though you may need to edit the output, there is enormous savings in the time you would otherwise spend in creating the graphics and layout of the infographic.

The best way to improve your use of GenAI is through daily practice. By integrating it into your everyday tasks, you will quickly become more skilled and effective at using the tools. Effective prompt writing will become second nature to you. After just a few weeks, faculty will be prepared to take deep dives into making their syllabi more effective; identifying new opportunities for student engagement; creating new approaches to advise and mentor students; and identifying funding sources and drafting optimal research proposals. Administrators will be able to identify strategies to get more out of the college or departmental budget; identify competitors and strategies to compete more effectively to attract more students; tweak marketing plans to be more efficient and effective; brainstorm new course and certificate offerings; and align staff to optimize their strengths and satisfaction.

Yet, we must remember that, while integrating AI into daily routines can significantly boost productivity and learning, it’s important to critically evaluate the information provided and ensure the responsible use of these technologies. You will need to proof-read the output and be prepared to make changes. Also, it is essential to keep abreast of privacy and ethical considerations associated with using AI tools. Finally, as I have done here, it is important to recognize the AI app that provided assistance in composing the report or correspondence.

 

This article originally appeared in Inside Higher Ed’s Transforming Teaching and Learning blog.

In Texas, money is flowing for short-term credentials. The state’s new funding formula, signed by the governor in June, is allocating dollars to community colleges in part based on how many credentials of value they award. 

It would appear that there is no better time to invest in alternative credentials. Interest rates on student loans are the highest they’ve been in a decade. Employers are loosening degree requirements for jobs, in the midst of advocacy campaigns and a still-tight labor market. 

The big idea: If Texas can stick the landing—getting citizens without a college education into short-term programs and subsequently into well-paying jobs—it could be a model of upward mobility for others around the country. 

[…]

What employers say: A recent national survey of over 1K full-time hiring managers found that about two thirds said their organization still relies on a four-year degree as the primary measure of whether an employee can perform. 

“There’s still a good bit of gatekeeping with the four-year degree, as this is what you need to enter the kingdom,” says Bruce Etter, senior director of research and consulting at the UPCEA, the online and professional education association, which conducted the survey along with InsideTrack.

“To advance throughout the ranks, microcredentials or non-degree credentials can help do that,” he says.

Read the full article.

While the majority of colleges focused on online, professional and continuing education have embraced alternative credentials, a significant number of those institutions haven’t made them a strategic priority.

That’s one of the key takeaways from a new study released Monday by UPCEA, the online and professional education association. 

“While a lot of institutions want this, they don’t necessarily all know how” to deliver alternative credentials, said Bruce Etter, UPCEA’s senior director of research and consulting. “Embracing it is great, but now it needs to be part of the strategic plan.”

Read the full article.